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Nexus 7 review: The best $200 tablet you can buy

engadget.com

71–80 of 128 posts

Re: Nexus 7 review: The best $200 tablet you can buy

#71
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh, SD card isn't much to me. 3G on the other hand would be sweet

And that is why it has neither. At $200, you can't include throwaway features that don't appeal to a majority of your target market. For myself, I don't know why I'd care that my tablet was a phone. I already have a phone; if I want to put the tablet on the internet I tether it to the phone.

Why drain just one battery when you can drain two!

Re: Nexus 7 review: The best $200 tablet you can buy

#72
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought they were selling for cost price. AU249 for 8Gb and AU299 for 16Gb.

Why are we Australians getting ripped off again. 200USD It's not because of shipping because that is added separately. Even if it was $50 is way too much.

Actually, 250AUD is pretty much exactly 250USD. But remember, FX rates are spot rates, they don't take into account the FX risk incurred by holding money over time in the foreign currency. So it makes sense to for a US company to charge a premium to customers using a different currency. (Note the forward prices vs. spot for AUDUSD here: http://fx.sauder.ubc.ca/closing.html)

Besides, by the time you pay for shipping and tax in New York, the $199 tablet is $232!

Re: Nexus 7 review: The best $200 tablet you can buy

#73

No 3G though? I guess when you're only willing to spend $200, it's not worth it?

Cell modem would easily add $100 to the price; not to mention having to pair it with a carrier (which Google doesn't seem willing to do just yet). They could do unlocked, but contract-free, tablet only SIMs aren't very common in the US yet. Plus, don't believe Asus has shipped many cell-equipped tablets yet. Am a bit surprised they didn't do some sort of "instant tethering" feature: tap your phone and tablet, they pi…

I think many people are still not aware of MiFi[1] and the ilk.

If you are amongst those who miss 3G in $device then check them out now, you might be in for a pleasant surprise.

(personally I have a huawei 585 and can recommend it wholeheartedly, it's even smaller than the MiFis!)

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiFi

Re: Nexus 7 review: The best $200 tablet you can buy

#74

The 16 GB model looks sold out in Canada (I only get a subscribe for notifications option), is it the same in the US?

Would also be interested in knowing this. Currently have the 8GB ordered instead.

Seems to be on and off. I was able to order a 16GB not long after posting, but when I look on the site right now it's gone again.

Re: Nexus 7 review: The best $200 tablet you can buy

#75
I'll be curious to hear if the screen is sufficient for reading. I have an e-ink Nook currently that's starting to feel a little old but the e-ink is absolutely the best to read on. Would consider upgrading but I'm not sure if it will be a good reading experience or not.

Re: Nexus 7 review: The best $200 tablet you can buy

#76
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how that works logically. A 7" tablet is just about exactly as much bigger than a 4" phone as a 10" tablet is bigger than a 7" tablet. Why is one quantum more important than the other? I could just as well say "Double the size makes it really hard to argue that the iPad is notably better than a 7" tablet." with exactly the same justification. I think it's very much taste-dependent. I've used an iPad and b…

>Why is one quantum more important than the other? I've owned both. Long story short, things like comics, magazines, non-mobile web, etc are terrible on a 7". Consuming this media often involves lots of tapping and zooming. Its annoying. Two people can sit together and watch a TV show or movie comfortable with a 10" tablet. With a 7" its almost like crowding around someone's phone. Oh, and the 10" opens up this world…

Well my Nook Color (first gen) is a 7" device, and I can easily slip that in the back pocket of my dress pants or jeans. Of course it is good to remember to remove it afterwards. Usually I would slip it in my back pocket on the way to the car, take it out, then repeat for entering the office -- no bag needed. It does work really good for regular books, but around the house I mostly use it to look stuff up online when someone else is at the computer. Things like checking the weather, looking up a channel listing, etc. The one thing that it really stinks at though is PDFs. For some reason, almost every PDF is formatted for 8.5x11 (or A4) -- even when there is a load of white space around the document. Now if I have the source for a PDF document and reformat it for this size screen, it works great.

What I think would be a killer feature is having a print driver on your desktop that sends formatted PDF printouts directly to your tablet device, sized for the screen. Then you would have a true replacement for your printer for many use cases (such as printing off some quick notes for a meeting, etc).

Re: Nexus 7 review: The best $200 tablet you can buy

#77
post #70
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are we Australians getting ripped off again. 200USD It's not because of shipping because that is added separately. Even if it was $50 is way too much.

I wonder if the price includes GST (a 10% sales tax)? Still, that's only an additional $20.

[deleted]

Re: Nexus 7 review: The best $200 tablet you can buy

#79
In 2008, when the Eee PC was revolutionizing the computing world and driving every manufacturer to make cheaper and smaller laptops, Sony washed its hands of the whole thing. The "race to the bottom," the company said, would profoundly impact the industry, killing profit margins and flooding the market with cheap, terrible machines. Sony was wrong, its stance lasting about a year before joining the competition with its own VAIO W.

I actually disagree with this first paragraph, I think Sony was right. The "race to the bottom" definitely did impact the industry, and for quite some time, no manufacturer even offered a laptop with decent build quality, except for Apple of course. People thought "why should I pay $1,000+ for this laptop when I can get a much cheaper laptop that will do everything I need?" And then the Macbook Air and the iPad come along and all of a sudden, people have no problem paying more for a quality product. If it wasn't for Apple, the OEMs would continue to release shitty machines until they all went bankrupt from negative profit margins.

I don't think the tablet market is experiencing the same race to the bottom because people are not buying these shitty tablets (which the Nexus 7 isn't). Everybody is still buying iPads and will continue to do so until a tablet that can actually compete with the iPad is released. (I have only seen two that even come close, the Galaxy and the Transformer, and still...) I think Apple has proven that consumers are willing to pay more if the product is good. And this is all coming from someone that does not own a single Apple product.

Re: Nexus 7 review: The best $200 tablet you can buy

#80

is 7" really big enough for a tablet for most people? That's only slightly larger than my phone :/

Having owned both a Kindle Fire and then an iPad 3... The Kindle Fire was nice... but the iPad 3 was a revelation. The 10" screen of the iPad completely changed my perception of tablets. I found the 7" Kindle Fire to be unbearable afterwards and was forced to sell it.
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